Tuesday, September 12, 2006

haunted houses

i'm back in the land of 10,000 rehab centers.





i told my friend dee that i'd been watching burlington real estate online, and there was a cool house on south hill. cedar street, i believed, but i wasn't sure about the street, and it had gotten dark. dee said she wanted to show me the most haunted house in burlington. "It's around here somewhere..." She couldn't recall the street, so we circled and squared for about 15 minutes. "There!" I look. It's MY house. The one i'd been telling her about. the one i'd been drooling over online.

Burlington's most haunted.




here's another burlington real-estate gem. it's listed for 90,000, which probably means you could get it for 80.




in other news: i'm in the process of linking to all the pimps who left comments on sept 5. little by little....

46 comments:

Stephen Blackmoore said...

You NEED to buy this house.

Seriously.

anne frasier said...

stephen! you are a bad influence! :D

although i have talked about buying a house where i could host writers retreats.... hmmm. but who would go to burlington, iowa? it's not exactly a tourist attraction.

and i have i mentioned that if i actually saw a ghost i'd knock people down getting out of there?

Jeff said...

The house in the top photo even looks like a haunted house.

The house you have thought about buying looks very nice, and the price sounds reasonable. :)

Mary Louisa said...

Am I understanding correctly that the woman who wrote Pale Immortal is a WEENIE?? LOL

anne frasier said...

jeff, but those ghosties.... !!!!!


mary louisa: LMAO!!! YES!!!! YES, I AM!!!!!

Jaye Wells said...

That stuff scares the bejeezus out of me. But I'm still intrigued.

BTW, where do I sign up for the writing retreat. Iowa or no--hell, ghosts or no--I'm there.

Bailey Stewart said...

Hey! What's wrong with Iowa? *gg* It gave us Herbert Hoover, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Woods, John Wayne, Cloris Leachman, Anne Frasier and Bailey Stewart. Plus Rath Hotdogs, Good Housekeeping and Amana appliances. It also gave us Tom Arnold - but we don't talk about that.

Love the top two houses - intrigued by the last one.

Jaye Wells said...

The last one has to be a joke. There are freaking bats swarming over the roof.

anne frasier said...

jaye, so you're in for the retreat? woot! i'll keep that in mind.
the last photo isn't a joke. i swear. those are the pigeon gangs that have taken over downtown.

Jaye Wells said...

And it's really only $90,000? Snap it up! It looks like a perfect place for the retreat.

angie said...

Sissy or no, I'm not surprised you managed to pick "the most haunted house in Burlington." And if you're such a sissy, why were you all excited about the ghost hunting expedition?! Anyway, glad you're back.

anne frasier said...

jaye: i didn't have time to see the inside of the building. probably needs to be gutted, but it's quite amazing from the outside.

the other place -- the most haunted -- was supposedly completely restored 10 years ago.


angie: it would be different if i were LIVING in a place. i've been on a lot of ghost hunts and i've never seen anything that remotely convinced me that ghosts exist. i would like to see something -- then get the hell out of there. :D :D :D

Anonymous said...

That's it. The house was meant to be yours. I just hope they're friendly ghosts.

anne frasier said...

damn! now i'm wishing i'd had time to contact a real estate agent!
nah, it would cost a fortune to heat. and it would be hard to resell -- even unhaunted. a writer has to be able to unload real estate very quickly when those periods of unemployment hit. and they always hit.

Sandra Ruttan said...

Oh, so we pimp and then we end up on your permanent payroll? I hope we get great, saucy pimping names!!!

anne frasier said...

i like the idea of actually owning the location where these retreats take place. and i would like people to be able to come for free or for very little expense. i know nothing of non-profit stuff, but maybe that's an idea....

anne frasier said...

sandra, the pimp/whore bond is strong.

Stephen Blackmoore said...

"but who would go to burlington, iowa?"

Which is what makes it perfect for a retreat. Remote. Quiet. Full of interesting architecture and history to fire the mind.

And ghosts. You can't go wrong with ghosts to get things going.

Do it as a weeklong retreat / workshop for a few people a couple times a year and then rent out a chunk of it as a retreat on an ad-hoc basis that's convenient for you.

Hell, I'd sign up.

anne frasier said...

stephen, that's what i was thinking. a weeklong retreat twice a year.

i'm making a list:

jaye
stephen

anne frasier said...

oh bailey: captain kirk was from riverside, iowa, which is just south of iowa city.

http://www.starfleetlibrary.com/bios/james_t_kirk.htm

Tami Klockau said...

Welcome back Anne! Man, count me in for the retreat! The best part of it is that it IS in Iowa. Just like Stephen said, nice and quiet. How awesome if you got the pimps together for a writing retreat. I think it being haunted is an added plus! sweet!

I must tell you, my mouth dropped when you mentioned the prices of those houses. Multiply that price by 4...yes 4...and that's what I paid for a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouse (1150 sq. ft. roughly) in San Diego. Sad, isn't it? If our industry/jobs weren't here in So Cal, i'd so be out of here (though I do love it here.)

anne frasier said...

thanks, tami! i'll add you to my retreat list. ;) and a pimp retreat would be awesome!!!

i'm not surprised at the prices of san diego property. it's not that high here, but it's high. probably one step down from chicago prices. i'm tired of working my butt off to make the mortgage payment!

Bailey Stewart said...

Um, pencil me in for the retreat.

And I knew about Capt. Kirk - I just wasn't going fictional, but if you want there's Radar O'Reilly too. ;)

Oh I'm from Ioway, Ioway ...

emeraldcite said...

What beautiful, beautiful buildings.

If you buy one, can I have a room?

That first home in red is so awesome.

I have to say that the homes in florida are quite boring, unless you hit the million dollar range.

But homes in older areas have such artful construction that it almost makes me miss the lands of snow.

Almost.

emeraldcite said...

i'm so in for the retreat...

anne frasier said...

bailey, i had to throw in captain kirk because they used to have a festival for him every year in riverside.

it was SOOOOOO lame! :D

i've penciled you in for the retreat!




emeraldcite: the architecture is amazing. in one block i got dozens of photos.


and another for the retreat!!!

Tami Klockau said...

A festival? For captain Kirk? You have to be joking! Wow.

Hey, you changed your avatar!

anne frasier said...

tami, they hoped william shatner would come. they had a tv in an old barn -- people sat on bales of straw and watched star trek videos on a tiny screen.
:D i'm not kidding.

the avatar: i was getting sick of my bookcover. not sure i'm keeping this one, but i need something new!

Bailey Stewart said...

I like the new avatar.

Anonymous said...

Is Iowa on the ocean by any chance? Just checking.

I don't believe in ghosts, as long as nobody sneaks up behind me and I don't see any funny shadows.

anne frasier said...

bekbek: ocean on one side, mountains on the other. oh wait. that's the death bed scene in soylent green.

Anonymous said...

But... Soylant green is PEOPLE!

Mindy Tarquini said...

I've been on a couple of ghost hunts. They're great tours, revealing tidbits of history and some interesting angles. They also tend to get you into sections of places that aren't normally open to the public.

anne frasier said...

bekbek: *gasp*

and bruce willis is a ghost. ;)

m.g., that is a cool thing about tours. they always involve the history of a place -- something i love no matter where it is.

Anonymous said...

i live in burlington,my friends and i sat outside of that house a million times,we know every story about it.the thing we used to see is a red light in the window,and when we got close to the house it would go out.(i just showed one of the friends the picture of this house from 15 feet away, and he was like, "hey the red light house"

anne frasier said...

ooh, very interesting!! thanks for the information! a friend told me the hawk eye did an article on the house years and years ago, but she couldn't recall the details.

Anonymous said...

and that is not burlington's most haunted by the way...but most haunted nice house prolly.

anne frasier said...

burlington seems to have a lot of haunted places. i've also heard of another house not far from there that used to be a hospital for malaria patients.

Anonymous said...

no problem, i follow all the ghost stuff in burlington,thats actually how i found this site.but that house i know lots of "stories" about,from parents and friends parents.my friend dave's told him some guy used to put booby traps in the lawn for kids. and then something about real estate agent was killed in the house while preparing it for show

Anonymous said...

malari?snake alley has the grant house,thats the hospital

anne frasier said...

wow! never heard that one!!

the malaria hospital was on the east side of main street. i can't remember the name of the street. it was divided into two houses. one is now yellow. i think it was more of a boarding house that was just converted to a temp hospital for malaria patients.

Anonymous said...

u got me on that one,i've never heard of a malaria hospital off of main. main has alot of well preserved bricks for an alley,so i guess that might be. but i'm sort of the ghost hunter of burlington,and i have a friend just about on every street that wants me at their house, and i've never heard of a malaria treatment center of any type on main. the grant house was a civil war hospital that is now a museum,but they also treated malaria there. other than that though

anne frasier said...

thanks for the interesting information, anon!

almost midnight -- i'm signing out!

anne frasier said...

i'll find out the name of the street and post it here tomorrow. just in case you want to check back. and one person's haunting could be just another person's rat in the trashcan. haha! i've been on some ghosthunts in burlington. never seen anything that convinced me of anything, but i'm still looking.

Anonymous said...

i'll tell you were to go if you want a ghost hunt. all the ppl in burlington usually just look for the most creepy looking places. a creepy house is just a house, i can tell you a few that all the stupid 52601 dumbass "ghost hunters" don't know anything about. they just go and look for scary looking houses!!

anne frasier said...

the name of the street is acres!